Female sexuality

[Monkeytrousers]

hello and welcome

does that work???

Yep

right, see you in a week

Thornhill and Palmer see pretty certain of what they believe, even if their supporters are trying to pretend they are arguing something else.

"As bizarre as some of these facts may seem, they all make sense when rape is viewed as a natural, biological phenomenon that is a product of the human evolutionary heritage. We fervently believe that, just as the leopard's spots and the giraffe's elongated neck are the results of aeons of past Darwinian selection, so is rape."

Oh MonkeyTrousers I have pisse dyou off.

I've admitted vast ignorance of the subject and also have put my hand up to residual paranoia!

I did say I thought the onus was on EP to prove itself given the past, but admitted that I might be being unfair..

I did, in fact, put together some of the points that concerned me from my re-reading of the thread, but that post got lost amid some other argy-bargy.

sorry you feel I've pulled it all away from reasoned debate - I do hope that's not the case.

It's me that's getting called ignorant and mad by MT, onebatother.

I don't think MT is having a go at you unless I missed something.

Not at all Batty, sorry of the tone was a bit off. I am hoping you will bring an element of reason back to the debate, sceptical or otherwise, along with TUM and Kittock and others. You ask questions; I think you know that many of the theories we put forward are not meant to be taken as absolutes; Etin and I are on a journey, we are testing and gathering our own knowledge and are not trying to defend EP at any cost. We began as feminists and are stil feminists. I wasn't aware that you couldn't declare yourself a feminist but had to be approved as one.

But anyway, the debate has become one of false dichotomies, exactly like the whole nature/nurture, culture/gene false dichotomy. In that territory it is nonsensical, an argument about misconceptions.

Having a bit of a break so I can get on with my reading etc (this thread has helped to focus me a bit more which is good).

Just been wondering what people think of Christina Hoff-Sommers. I tried reading 'Who Stole Feminism', found it tedious and irritating.

What do people here think about the feminists like Hoff-Sommers?
(Forgive me if this has been discussed on other threads already).

ok, I wouldn't personally call Hoff-Sommers a feminist. What I'm really getting at is that there are different feminisms and much argument within feminism so is there a common definition that everyone is assuming here?
And, how many women even think of themselves as feminists anymore? How many members on this site are 'feminists' of any sort.
(Being a '70s feminst' I'm genuinely curious as to where the movement is today)

Tellusmater - I'm interested in your comment that ep "assumes that psychological traits are discrete, heritable and have been subject to natural selection".

Is there an scientifically credible alternative view to these assumptions? If psychological or behavioural traits are not discrete, heritable or subject to natural selection, how would distinct patterns of behaviour arise (say for example the often-cited ducklings that follow a moving object within hours of birth?)

Etin haven't read hoff-sommers but will have a look tomorrow. I certainly think of myself as a feminist. I'm sure you're absolutely right about there being different feminisms and much argument within feminism (as has been amply demonstrated on this thread today). It would be very interesting to get an idea of what feminism means to various MNers. New thread?

MT Oh good - hope I didn't sound too passive aggressive (re-reading I think I did not intentional)
Eliz thanks too, tho it all gets so mental.
(am i only one who finds emoticons a bit like having cuddly toys on your bed when adult female?)

Sheesh, I dunno. This is such a huge one and if one's not already with the programme (and hasn't realistically much chance of catching up) it's difficult not to refer to arguments you had fifteen years ago. I think I'll try and answer Kittock's 'use an extra sheet of paper' Q's honestly, they were good.

I think if there's one thing all feminists would agree on it's that feminists disagree about nearly every aspect of feminism. There are, for instance, pro-life feminists, feminists who think that having any interaction with men is anti-feminists, right-wing femiists...

I'm a feminist and (to answer Kittock) feminism to me means believing that women are human with the right to full autonomy, and that a woman can do anything she wants to do (except become a sperm donor).

The last chapter of Griet's book is about evolutionary theory acting as a cohesive metatheory for all feminisms. That is a blasphemous thought apparently.

okay MT, I know there's been a huge amount of back and forth about cutting and pasting and reading it for oneself ...but are you prepared to give a precis of the cohesive metatheory a go??

THing is, evolutionary theory is just that - theory. I take all behavioural science-type stuff with a pinch of salt because so much of it has so many variables (Buss boxes and so on) that make experiments difficult to replicate. A lot of behavioural scientists seem to think that because you can get rats to push buttons with their noses you can do similar experiments with human beings. Now rats are smart, as rodents go, but they don't quite have the same level of complexity in their thought processes that people do. 'Press a button or not press a button' is a choice a rat might make, but a person might well want to have a cup of tea, think about it, ask questions, leave the room, etc.

And if rape is about men spreading their genes, why do so many rapists force oral or anal sex on their victims (sometimes instead of vaginal sex)?

Hi madamez
I hope you're not saying that evolution is just a theory? The only alternative to evolution is creationism so I'm assuming you're not meaning that? I was presuming that at least we were all agreed that life has evolved by natural selecton.

I think rape mostly includes vaginal sex. And apparently plenty of women today engage in these other-orifice sexual activities willingly and others will do so for a price as part of their sex work. The point is, non-vaginal sex is part of human sexual behaviour, even other species engage in oral sex, though not anal as far as I know.

I suppose it's a bit like saying if eating is about satisfying our hunger, why do people eat when not hungry and eat all sorts of wierd creations. We know that the sensations of hunger evolved and the pleasures too but, especially in humans, food and hunger can become something amazingly complex. But no one suggests eating cannot therefore be about hunger because of this, or that our food likes and dislikes, along with the type size of our teeth, their enamel thickness etc etc cannot tell us about the food our ancestors evolved to eat.

By the way, I'm busy reading www.demos.co.uk/files/mattersoflifeanddeath.pdf

Thanks MT for this. Finding it very interesting.

Etin: blimey, no, sorry. Definitely not a creationist (though there are probably a few religious MNers now pssing themselves with laughter at the prospect). I think that what I meant (have grotty cold and stuffed up head, sorry if wombling) is that the sociobiology bits are just theories which can't be proved one way or the other. Ie: that men rape because they have evolved to do so in order to spread their genetic material around is a theory not a fact. Many men do not* rape. SOme men are celibate for religious reasons. Some men have decided that the world is overpopulated and they do not wish to breed any children at all.

What, I wonder, is the incidence of rape among males who have had vasectomies?

Madamez - thought you did not mean evolution is not real

But you're missing the point about sex and reproduction. The men are not wanting to make babies. Even back through evolution organisms were selected to mate, not to want offspring.

The mechanism that leads to reproduction is not (apart from sometimes in humans) a desire to reproduce or even necessarily fertility as such. Its a sexual response to a sexual situation. It's the desire for sex that has been selected for, not the desire for children. And because the potential reproductive success of the two sexes in humans, and most though not all other species, is different then sex/reproductive behaviours are different for the sexes in at least some respects.

Males mostly have to convince females to take their DNA into the next generation. Amongst the male behaviours that have worked for males are: displaying attractive traits as with peacocks, keeping other males away as with stags, providing resources in exchange for mating, staying around and providing protection to female and offspring, providing direct male parental care but also, in certain circumstances and situations harassing females and using some degree of force.

Incidently, There's not been a lot about it recently but I do occasionally come across people saying that chemical castration is effective preventing sex offenders from reoffending - ie by reducing the sex drive/hormone levels offending can be stopped in at least some cases. Haven't looked for any actual studies though.

OBM, the book isn't a big book. And it's written by a professional. I am a student. People might get the idea that my interpretation of the data is the data, It isn't. If I fail to convince anyone here, it's may well be becasue of my personal failings at teh stage that I am. I am myself, only at the beginnibng of this journey, even though I have been reasearching it for 5 years - four of those years doing a humanities degree and surrounded by feminist data, feminist theory and feminist lectureers who I discussed this with.

Please, just buy the book. I can't understand people's reluctance to do this when they are plainly very interetsed in teh contents!

Etin: I don't think there have been any conclusive studies on whether or not chemical castration stops rapists (though I believe that some studies show links between high levels of testosterone and high levels of aggression - albeit not in any way suggesting that all men with lots of testosterone will rape). I think what I have an issue with here is that the EP approach seems to have a rather narrow definition of what rape is. Many rapists kill or attempt to kill their victims - another evolutionary dead end.

madamez, I agree here, in fact re. the Thornhill and Palmer book, I think it would have been better if they had restricted it to rape/sexual coercion within more everyday male-female interactions.

A lot of the problem in discussing rape is trying to put all kinds of rape within a single explanation.

The type of rape that I'm most concerned with is that which is broadly 'lack of female mate choice', from forced marriages to acquaintance rape - ie those 'rape' situations which are so near to, yet so far away from, ones that are consensual sexual situations.

Hang on, just reading MP's roundup. Eliz, your real initials would't be ZW's would they? That woul;d explain a lot!